Why? Because community platforms that are branded as a separate content website are a sure fire way to drive user engagement in an unbiased manner.

For big-budget brands with tons of content, this makes sense. It’s a great place for them to publish their resources – skillfully marketing their brand without looking like they’re marketing.

However, most companies without a marketing budget the size of Texas already struggle to keep up with content demands. Adding another site or platform just adds a lot of unnecessary work to the mix. It’s a bad idea for this reason alone.

Yet there are even more reasons why you shouldn’t create a separate website just for content:

Reason #1 – Lack of Resources

Driving traffic, creating content and content distribution already add up to a full-time job. Deflect from your company website at all and suddenly you’ve created two very big jobs for yourself. And who really needs more work?

Reason #2 – Diversion of Traffic

Plus, whenever you launch a new domain, you have to be aware of Google sandbox. Your new site will not be included in search results for several months. Keep SEO juices on your corporate website.

Reason #3 – Near-Zero ROI

Unless your brand is widely known, then branding a new website for just for community building will have – like zero – impact on your ROI. So, what’s the point? I’m sure you can find more effective ways to spend your marketing dollars.

There are some benefits to an additional content website. However, in most cases if your company lacks a strong, resource-heavy marketing mother ship, a content website is rarely a good idea.

If, for some reason, you can’t build on top of your existing corporate website, then look into creating a subdomain off of your root domain like this: blog.mydomain.com. At least this way your brand will stay intact.

For more information on how to optimize your existing website, schedule a free consultation with Smashdeck Marketing.